This invention relates broadly to the art of preparing layouts for books, and more particularly to preparing layouts for school yearbooks.
High school and college yearbooks consist mainly of copy (textual material), photographs, and graphic art. Most of these materials are created and organized for publication by students. In this regard, after the material is created it is "layed out" by the students to appear in a certain order and in certain combinations with other related materials. For example, a cartoon tennis character, photographs of tennis team members, and copy relating to the tennis team's seasons might be layed out on a double-page spread (two facing, or side-by-side, pages). The student yearbook workers indicate the organization of these materials on layout sheets before sending the materials and the layout sheets to printers who print the materials in yearbooks. In order to layout these materials students must decide how many columns each page will have and then they must position all copy, photographs, and graphic art, exactly as it will appear in the yearbook, within the chosen column arrangement.
Yearbooks are normally made having either 9 .times.12 inch, 81/2.times.11 inch, or 73/4.times.10 inch trim sizes (the sizes after the sheets have been trimmed to their appropriate page sizes). Thus, double-spread layout sheets used by student yearbook personnel have pages which are usually one of these sizes, depending on the size yearbook the school wishes to publish. The layout sheets have imprinted thereon vertical pica grid lines at 1/6 inch horizontal intervals (the size of one pica) and, in the center thereof, they have a vertical gutter line corresponding to the gutter (the center of a double page spread where the two pages meet) at the center of a book. Such a layout sheet, having a center gutter line with pages on opposite sides of the gutter line, is sometimes referred to as a spread.
Student yearbook personnel are normally instructed to begin page columns one or two picas from the gutter line on the layout sheets and to place at least one pica of white space between columns. Further, the students are normally instructed as to how many picas are in a column depending on the number of columns desired per page or spread and the size of the pages. In addition, the students are instructed not to place graphic material beyond the outside edges of the outside columns, although it is permissible to place photographs in the white spaces between columns. Using these and other instructions, student yearbook personnel place rectangles on the layout sheets identifying copy, photographs, and graphic art to appear thereat. However, such student personnel often make mistakes in calculating and marking the widths and positions of columns and therefore improperly layout their materials. In such cases, when the layout sheets along with the copy, photographs, and graphic art are forwarded to printers, the printers usually send these materials back to the school to be corrected prior to printing. As can be imagined, such a process unduly disrupts printing schedules of yearbooks, sometimes even postponing the availability date of yearbooks beyond the last days of school, thereby making it difficult to distribute them.
For this reason, it is an object of this invention to provide a column marker to be used by student yearbook personnel which makes it easy for such personnel to properly position and determine the widths of columns to be placed on a yearbook layout sheet.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a column marker which is sufficiently easy for personnel organizing a book to use that they can layout columns with much less fear of making mistakes than has been the case in the past and, therefore, with greater speed.
Further, it is an object of this invention to provide such a column marker which is inexpensive and durable.